My Name: Matthew Sanborn Smith. My challenge: Write 1000 stories by the time I'm 50 years old. Current story count: 160. Current age: 48. (Yes, I know it will never happen. I push on regardless.)
The One-Thousand is made up of stories that are aimed at publication in professional venues.
I've been published at Tor.com, Nature, and Chizine, among others. Listen to me on the occasional StarShipSofa and every single Beware the Hairy Mango. Shoot me an e-mail at upwithgravity@gmail.com

Sunday, May 18, 2008

The World's Biggest Waterslide, Day Three

THE WORLD’S BIGGEST WATERSLIDE, DAY THREEBy Matthew Sanborn Smith

Everything washes down. I’m grateful for that. The vomit, the corpses, the piss and shit. It all flows ever forward through the wide and endless fiberglass loops. Washing down and away from me.

It’s an endurance test. I’m covered in Shar-Pei wrinkles, between the oil my body is losing and the loosening skin of my starving frame. I’m drinking chlorinated water that a billion bodies have slid through. I’m hungry as hell. If someone doesn’t throw me a sandwich, I’ll never make it for four more days, never mind four more weeks. They said the slide would alleviate the population problems. I thought they meant by keeping one third of humanity off of the Earth at all times. Now I realize they meant by voluntary extermination.

But Oh My God, this is fun! This is why the space elevator was created!